GRAMMY IN RECOVERY: Hugged and kissed the last departures yesterday morning. ::sigh:: It was a great holiday. I’m exhausted! LOL The toys are almost all back on their shelves, but I can’t find the marbles for the marble run. No doubt the fastest way to find them will be to order a new bag of marbles. Dishes – half done. Laundry – half done. Desk – don’t ask. Aaaaaand, on to the news …

PELOSI: The Democrat Speaker of the House says it is not her job to tell Democrat members of the House how to exercise their First Amendment rights.

She, however, has NO difficulty telling the Republican President of the United States how to exercise HIS.

She’s also told us that a border wall is “an immorality”, but when a legal immigrant police officer was murdered by an illegal immigrant criminal, she had nothing to say at all.

ELIZABETH WARREN: Not one of the cool kids — William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection called Elizabeth Warren’s New Year’s Eve social media broadcast a “Dukakis Tank Moment. For those too young to remember, 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis tried to overcome the public perception that he was a wimp and soft on the military by dressing up in camo and riding around in a tank.

“Dukakis in the tank” remains shorthand for backfired public relations outings. The Bush campaign used it against him and even the press corps howled with laughter. Warren’s campaign launch has a “Dukakis in the tank” feel. On New Year’s Eve, she tried to mimic Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez by live streaming her meal preparation from her kitchen. It is painful to watch.

JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: First two Republican women — Sens. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) are set to become the first female Republican senators to serve on the Judiciary Committee. Both have strong pro-life voting records.

Pro-life groups are especially excited for Blackburn’s appointment, because she has been a leading force in investigations against Planned Parenthood.

This committee will be busy. Although Senate Republicans confirmed a record number of appellate judges last year, the total number of vacancies are still 52% higher than they were in July 2016, with more than 130 positions on the U.S. District Court and U.S. Court of Appeals still vacant.

DO WE CARE IF THE U.N. IS GOING BROKE? — United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the U.N. is running out of money and is urging members to pay up amid a looming financial crisis for the international body.

AUTISTIC BUSINESS:German-based Auticon caters to autistic individuals. The firm was founded in 2013 by Gray Benoist who saw few options in the workplace for his two autistic sons. “Both are incredibly capable and smart and deserve an opportunity to be able to express that.” He now has 150 employees. One of his sites is a small firm located in Santa Monica that tests software and fixes bugs. The article is worth reading! It points out two reasons why catering to the needs of autistic employees isn’t charity.

Wasn’t Ernst the one who ran the commercial about castrating pigs? Seems to me she seemed teaparty but kind-of went RINO in early votes, but I’m not sure and I can’t bother myself to look it up right now.

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Went searching for “Dukakis tank” images. Really not as bad as I remembered. Bad, yes, but I remember him as barely peeking out of the hatch – maybe I’m recalling some editorial cartoonist’s depiction. Meanwhile, the search turned up this:

Elizabeth Warren’s Dukakis Tank moment Aug 2012

An endless font of hilarity is Squaw Cheekbones.

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Sledding doggies just want to have fun.

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And the Oedipus illustration – I saw Bluebird saying that yesterday, today it’s a meme poster. Whose was that work, I wonder — can’t make out the signature — and did different folks come up with the same idea independently, or is this a Oedipussing conspiracy?

A key line, from John’s letter: “But I wanted to only take my life, not anybody else and I think she would’ve tried to find me.” Her fortitude and devotion to him forced his mind out of the self-absorbed, self-destructive loop, forced him to actively care about someone else. That’s the real life-change moment.

One week before Christmas, the youngest of four sons of my oldest friend took his own life, barely in his 20s. The grief is agonizing. Such a huge challenge to the parents’ deep faith, and everyone’s. Where was his Pam Bates, o Lord? By this, we don’t doubt in faith, we just wonder in grief for those who “do follow through”:

At some point in our lives, each of us has found ourselves walking with a sense of helplessness along a ridgeline and through a personal storm. Alone, devoid of a sense of emotional warmth and safety, and smothered by the darkness of our emotions, we’ve sought that place just off trail where we hoped to find some way to break free of our struggles and strife. Sadly and tragically, some do follow through. Many are able to quietly self-rescue, and others like John are rescued by others like Pam Bales.

I was actively suicidal in high school and thank God I was raised Catholic. As miserable as I was in this life, I had no desire to end it only to find myself in a bigger mess in the next. So I set out to learn for certain sure if there was an afterlife and a God or gods and, if so, were they the ones I’d been taught about by the RCC.

I think that, because I didn’t care what the answer was, so long as it was TRUE, I was led carefully through first a logical process to a point where I could see how it all could be true. But I didn’t see how I could know.

I felt like I was at the edge of a “grand canyon” with me and my questions on my side and the answers on the other. I prayed the agnostics prayer, “Oh God, if you’re real and want me to know it, please come and show me, because I can’t go any further on my own.”

And He did. It was such a gentle thing, my coming to faith. Have you ever tried to see the image in one of those 3D pictures? You look and look, see nothing even though everyone tells you it’s there. A friend of mine stood behind me and told me to focus on the reflection of her white lace collar in the glass on the framed image. Suddenly, the picture popped out at me and after that, no matter how I moved my eyes around, I couldn’t NOT see it.

It was just like that. God stood behind me and turned my head just slightly and there it was. Truth. Him. My eternal soul. And I knew that suicide was absolutely not an option for me. I had kinda hoped he’d send a helicopter to take me to the other side. Or show me a bridge. What He did do was like that scene in the Narnia Chronicles where the kids are on a cliff, needing to cross a river, but with no way down. Then Aslan appears and shows them the path they couldn’t see from above. But they still had to climb down it, slog across the river, get up the other side, etc. etc.

He makes the journey possible, but not easy. If it was easy, we wouldn’t grow into the beautiful creatures He envisioned when He created us. But unlike Olympic athletes who train and train and train knowing only one person will win the gold, for us, the gold is assured through Jesus.

“Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.”